The Hungarian leader Trump cites as a supporter champions ‘illiberal democracy’

BUDAPEST, Hungary (AP) — Former President Donald Trump made room during his debate with Vice President Kamala Harris to express the mutual admiration he shares with Viktor Orbán, the autocratic leader of Hungary who has cozied up with Russia and China and became a thorn in the side of his allies.

“They call him a strongman. He’s a tough person, smart,” Trump said of Orbán in response to Harris’ assertion that world leaders are “laughing” at the former president.

“Look, Viktor Orbán said it. He said, ‘The most respected, the most feared person is Donald Trump. We had no problems when Trump was president,’” Trump said.

Why is Orbán popular with conservatives?

Orbán, a right-wing populist and the European Union’s longest-serving leader, has become an icon to some U.S. conservatives for championing what he calls “illiberal democracy,” which includes some of the EU’s harshest restrictions on immigration and LGBTQ+ rights.

He has also cracked down on the press and judiciary in the formerly Communist Central European country and been accused by the EU of violating rule-of-law and democracy standards, all while vigorously pursuing ever deeper relations with Beijing and Moscow, considered adversaries by his allies in the NATO military alliance.

Yet despite the growing consensus in the West that Orbán has abridged fundamental freedoms in Hungary, Trump and his wing of the Republican party have embraced him. While still in office in 2019, Trump welcomed Orbán for a meeting in the Oval Office, unnerving some lawmakers, while his former senior adviser, Steve Bannon, called the Hungarian leader “Trump before Trump.”

The former president as well as such conservative eminences like Tucker Carlson have praised Orbán’s zero-tolerance attitude toward immigration — he built a double-layered fence along Hungary’s southern border in 2015, after hundreds of thousands of refugees, mostly from Syria, fled into Europe.

They also laud Hungary’s efforts to increase its flagging birth rate by offering generous subsidies and low-interest loans to families planning to have children, an effort Orbán has described as intended to avoid relying on immigration to remedy a declining population.

“There aren’t enough Christian, white, traditional Europeans in Europe,” Orbán said at a campaign rally in June. “Instead, there’s a vacuum filled by migrants.”

Cozy relations with Trump

Such views have made him popular with the Conservative Political Action Conference, which has held events in the Hungarian capital of Budapest for the last three years. In 2022, he received a standing ovation at a national CPAC event in Dallas, telling the cheering crowd: “We must take back the institutions in Washington and Brussels. We must find friends and allies in one another.”

The Hungarian leader has openly endorsed Trump’s candidacy in the November election, and boldly shared Trump’s claim that the Republican will be able to swiftly bring an end to Russia’s war in Ukraine.

Orbán, widely seen as having the warmest relations with Russian President Vladimir Putin among all EU leaders, has routinely blocked, delayed or watered down EU efforts to extend assistance to Kyiv and to sanction Moscow over its war. He has consistently pushed for a cease-fire but without detailing what it would mean for Ukraine’s statehood or territorial integrity, or the potential security implications for Europe and the United States.

In July, Orbán met with Trump at the former president’s beachside compound Mar-a-Lago and shared a photo of the two on social media with the caption: “We discussed ways to make peace. The good news of the day: he’s going to solve it!”

On his own social media site, Trump posted: “Thank you Viktor. There must be PEACE, and quickly.”

Trump’s embrace of Orbán at the debate did not escape the attention of some prominent Democrats.

In a post on X on Wednesday, Hillary Clinton called Orbán “the democracy-killing Hungarian dictator,” while Tim Walz, Harris’ running mate, told MSNBC late Tuesday: “He was asked for one world leader who is with him, and it was Orbán. My God, that’s all you need to know.”